How did that third-party thing work out for you, Mr. Golisano?

ALBANY — New York billionaire Tom Golisano is taking his big bucks elsewhere.

Furious over a new “millionaire’s tax” that could cost him an extra $1 million this year, the Rochester-area resident and three-time gubernatorial candidate says he’s fleeing the state for Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Golisano called it a “quick decision” to switch his legal address to his $13 million waterfront mansion in Naples, Fla., after Gov. Paterson and lawmakers agreed to a record-breaking $4 billion income-tax hike last month.

[snip]

The millionaire’s tax — which hiked the income tax rate to 8.97 percent from 6.85 percent on those making over $500,000 a year — would force Golisano to pay $13,000 a day in state income taxes. That’s $4.7 million a year, up from $3.6 million.

Via Say Anything, which helpfully notes that Golisano is one of the founding members of the Independence Party of New York, which apparently exists more or less to remind the rest of the country why having multiple meaningful political parties is such a massive headache. I’m sure that Florida will welcome the attention and philanthropic zeal of Mr. Golisano, just as long as he controls his political enthusiasms properly. After all, there’s a reason why he felt the need to flee from a Democratic-controlled state to a Republican-controlled one…